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Thursday, October 15, 2015

Thursday Tip #13

{Thursday Tip: A regular weekly feature sharing my quilting tips. There are no rules in quilting, these are just the things that work for me and might help you. There are no quilt police, so use them as a guide; no ones watching :) There is no wrong way to do anything......just relax, experiment, learn, create and have fun. }

Do you add a quilt label to your finished quilts? I must admit, I'm terrible at labeling my quilts. I scrawl my name and date on the back most of the time, because I'm ready to move on to the next project. It is an important step though and I'm going to be more vigilant about labeling my quilts. One day, decades from now, our quilts will become antiques and a quilt label will reveal so much about the maker and the quilts history.

Here are a few of my tips, for labeling quilts:

I talked about design elements a few weeks ago, so use these tips to design your own quilt label, like the one pictured above. This quilt was a tribute to my Pop and I included his name and his birth and memorial dates and a few elements from the quilts stitcheries, to tie it all together. After folding and pressing the edges, I slip stitched it into place, on the back of the quilt. The pattern for this BOM quilt also includes two quilt labels I designed, to give that finishing touch.

If you don't have the time to stitch the label design, use permanent markers to draw your label instead, ensuring you check the recommended way to heat set your drawing.

Another quick way to label a quilt is to cut a square between 4-8" square (depending on the size of the quilt), press in half, wrong side together, to form a triangle. Before you add your binding, position the triangle in one corner of the quilt back, raw edges together and sew a scant 1/8" along the two raw edges to secure. Add your binding and then use a permanent marker to record your name and date on the label.

Embellish your labels with ribbons, lace, ric rac, buttons or applique them with flowers and hearts to give them a unique and pretty finish. Be creative and have fun!

If you are adding a hanging sleeve, you could always use this as your quilt label. This would be perfect for smaller projects, like mini quilts.

If you have made a test block for your quilt, use this as your label. You can either piece it as part of the backing of the quilt or slip stitch it on, after quilting.

Choose an album block, like yesterdays Chatelaine block, and use this in the same manner as the test block.

You can purchase ready made labels at most quilt shops or you can purchase quilt label fabric off the roll and cut them into individual labels.

You can also purchase custom made labels to add to all your projects; do a Google search for your best options.

I hope this inspires you to label your quilts. They can be as creative or as simple as you would like. I'm definitely going to invest more time in labeling my quilts, as they tell more about a quilts journey than a scrawl along the bottom edge :)